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Summary
Summary
Nola Brown, the U.S. Army's artist-in-residence--a painter and trained soldier--sees something nobody was supposed to see and earns a dangerous enemy in this novel as powerful as "a launched torpedo slashing through 400 pages of deep water before reaching impact...one of the best thrill rides ever" (David Baldacci).
Who is Nola Brown?
Nola is a mystery
Nola is trouble.
And Nola is supposed to be dead.
Her body was found on a plane that mysteriously fell from the sky as it left a secret military base in the Alaskan wilderness. Her commanding officer verifies she's dead. The US government confirms it. But Jim "Zig" Zigarowski has just found out the truth: Nola is still alive. And on the run.
Zig works at Dover Air Force Base, helping put to rest the bodies of those who die on top-secret missions. Nola was a childhood friend of Zig's daughter and someone who once saved his daughter's life. So when Zig realizes Nola is still alive, he's determined to find her. Yet as Zig digs into Nola's past, he learns that trouble follows Nola everywhere she goes.
Together, Nola and Zig will either reveal a sleight of hand being played at the highest levels of power or die trying to uncover the US Army's most mysterious secret--a centuries-old conspiracy that traces back through history to the greatest escape artist of all: Harry Houdini.
"Meltzer is a master and this is his best. Not since The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo have you seen a character like this. Get ready to meet Nola. If you've never tried Meltzer, this is the one." -- Harlan Coben
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Mortician Jim "Zig" Zigarowski, the hero of this stellar series launch from bestseller Meltzer (The Book of Lies), works the U.S. government's most top-secret and high-profile cases at Dover Air Force base in present-day Delaware. Zig's world changes when a military plane mysteriously crashes in the Alaskan wilderness and the body of soldier Nola Brown, who as a child saved his daughter from an explosion at a Girl Scout camp years before, arrives on his table. As Zig prepares the body, he discovers that the scars Nola sustained at camp are missing, and he becomes suspicious. When he finds a crumpled piece of paper in the woman's stomach, a warning for Nola, his suspicions are confirmed: this isn't Nola. Zig is determined to discover what happened to her and whether she's safe. The closer he gets to the truth, the more dangerous it becomes. Soon he finds himself in the middle of Operation Bluebook, a secret government program that goes back to Harry Houdini. With its remarkable plot and complex characters, this page-turner not only entertains but also provides a fascinating glimpse into American history. Author tour. Agents: Jill Kneerim, Kneerim, Williams & Bloom Agency and Jenifer Rudolph Walsh, WME. (Mar.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
An Army mortician teams up, sort of, with a military artist who just won't die to thwart an obscenely shape-shifting conspiracy.Everybody has some God-given talent. Jim Zigarowski's is to make the dead look presentable for the families who come to view their remains at the Dover Air Force Base. When the bombing of a military plane from Alaska kills all seven aboard, Zig's attention is drawn not to the headline victimLibrarian of Congress Nelson Rookstool, an old friend of President Orson Wallacebut to Sgt. Nola Brown, an Army artist-in-residence who years ago saved the life of 12-year-old Maggie Zigarowski, though she couldn't prevent Zig's daughter from dying scarcely a year later. Illegally grabbing the job of preparing Nola's remains from the mortician assigned to the case, Zig quickly discovers that the remains aren't Nola's after all. His joy that Nola is still alive is tempered by the sobering realization that an awful lot of people have conspired to cover up this happy news by signing off on her death. Inevitably, the living Nola returns, determined to get to the bottom of the bombing. By that time, veteran suspenser Meltzer (co-author: The House of Secrets, 2016, etc.) has begun a series of harrowing flashbacks to Nola's childhood and adolescence that firmly establish her as the most damaged heroine in the genre since Lisbeth Salander. Uncovering traces of a sinister scheme called Operation Bluebook, Zig and Nola workoften at cross-purposes, though not when they need to save each other's livesthrough a web of corrupt procurers, creatively armed killers, and board-certified magicians to trace and neutralize Bluebook before its resourceful conspirators can kill Zig and finish the job they bungled on Nola.The same mixture as before: a sweeping, overplotted, overscaled account of high crimes, misdemeanors, and violent coverups and reprisals. But those flashbacks into the heroine's traumatic early years, although they seriously disrupt the momentum of the blood-and-thunder present-day plot, sting long after the details of that plot have faded. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Nola Brown, a U.S. Army sergeant, dies in a plane crash; her body is taken to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, where Jim Zig Zigarowski, an employee of the base's mortuary, is responsible for preparing her body for burial. But Jim knows Nola Brown, and he knows the woman on his gurney is not her. Determined to find out what's going on, Zig tracks Nola down to where she's hiding and learns that she is embroiled in a conspiracy whose exposure could threaten the very foundations of the American government. Nola and Zig have only one option if they want to stay alive: bust open the conspiracy. Meltzer has based his literary career on conspiracy-themed stories, and he's very good at them. In Nola and Zig, too, he's created two of his most compellingly fresh characters. Nola, in particular, represents a high point in the author's career: a strong, resourceful, mysterious female lead who could go toe-to-toe with Jack Reacher, Bob Lee Swagger, and the other guys. First of a new series, according to the publisher, and that's just fine.--Pitt, David Copyright 2018 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
the Venetian settings are enchanting and Commissario Guido Brunetti's investigative methods are drolly amusing. But it's the living, bleeding humanity of the characters that makes Donna Leon's police procedurals so engaging. In the temptation of FORGIVENESS (Atlantic Monthly, $26), Brunetti comes to the assistance of Professoressa Crosera, whose 15-year-old son is taking drugs and whose husband suffered a brain injury after being thrown down the stone steps of a bridge. In his sensitive dealings with the victims of crime, Brunetti proves as much a psychologist and social worker as a cop: When the distraught Signora Crosera appears to be on the verge of a breakdown, he escorts her home and urges her to cook dinner for her children, "to show them you're all right and life is normal." Despite the personal satisfaction Brunetti takes in his job, it distresses him that the cynical Venetians have so little use for their police force. "The contract's been broken, between us and the state," he says. "No one trusts us." But Brunetti occasionally has doubts about the efficacy of the law, and at those times he's likely to consult the classics. This time he reads Sophocles for inspiration about the ethics of breaking an unjust law. "I am doing only what I must do," declares the unruly heroine of "Antigone," a role model for Brunetti. Tagging along after this sleuth is a wonderful way to see Venice like a native, especially since Leon takes care to give us precise directions for his routes. But Brunetti's observations aren't always pretty. The air pollution is beyond acceptable limits, and don't even mention the pollution of the canals. Drugs are everywhere in the schools, even the private schools. Much of the "Venetian" glassware is made in China and the newspaper kiosks are full of junky trinkets. The once-bustling fruit and vegetable stalls of the outdoor markets are emptying out and half the fishmongers are gone. As Signora Crosera notes, "There's nothing for Venetians to buy," not when olive oil costs 15 euros for a half liter and the new shops are catering to tourists. "What Venetian wants a glass elephant or a plastic mask?" "I put people to rest. That's my job." Jim Zigarowski stands behind those modest words in Brad Meltzer's new thriller, THE ESCAPE ARTIST (Grand Central, $28). As an undertaker at Dover Air Force Base, Zig works on "the U.S. government's most top secret and high-profile cases," including the fatal crash in Alaska of a small plane carrying the head of the Library of Congress, a close friend of the president. Whenever a person of consequence perishes in a disaster, the other victims barely get a mention - unless one of them happens to be Sgt. First Class Nola Brown, a decorated combat veteran who held the prestigious job of the Army's artist in residence. Although Nola is more a notion than a character, Zig is a mensch, and when he realizes that the body he autopsied is not the Nola he knew as his daughter's friend, he makes his own inquiries. Of more interest than this investigation, however, is the mortuary business itself, especially the respectful if elaborate procedures of military funerals like the one in which the president himself serves as a pallbearer. WHATEVER THE BRITISH writer Clare Mackintosh tells you, don't believe a word of it. Deception, misdirection, fabrication and fakery are the tricks of her trade, and there's plenty of all that in LET ME LIE (Berkley, $26). After a slow and soggy start, the narrative picks up as it follows Anna Johnson's efforts to determine why her parents chose to commit suicide, seven months apart, by leaping from the cliffs at Beachy Head, "a beautiful, haunting, agonizing place. At once uplifting and destroying." Murray Mackenzie, a retired police detective caring for a suicidal wife, is also fixated on this curious case, all the more so when Anna confides that she thinks she's seen her mother - or perhaps her ghost. Many (perhaps too many) narrative twists and turns later, the mystery is resolved, but not before all the principals in this moody story have gone through their own private hells. it takes brains - and a quirky sense of humor - to pull off a clever crime caper like the ones Donald E. Westlake, the master of this genre, executed with such panache. Paul Di Filippo gives it an honest try in the big get-even (Blackstone, $26.99), working with a motley crew of scam artists who team up to take revenge on a common enemy, a real-estate mogul named Barnaby Nancarrow. He's a real jerk and deserves whatever he gets, so let's not shed any tears when Glen McClinton, a disbarred lawyer and two-bit con man ("Bernie Madoff, c'est moi"), hooks up with Stan Hasso ("a crook with a certain code of ethics") to hustle the tycoon out of $20 million. Stan has a plan that involves buying a decrepit motor lodge that comes with 500 godforsaken acres on a weedy lake. To pull off the swindle, the ratty resort must first be restored to a functional state - a chore so distracting that the men (and the women who clean up after them) wait until we've lost all interest before they even launch the heist. ? Marilyn stasio has covered crime fiction for the Book Review since 1988. Her column appears twice a month.
Library Journal Review
Jim "Zig" Zigarowski is a mortician at Dover Air Force Base, where he prepares the returning bodies of U.S. heroes so they can have proper burial, and thus providing closure for the families. Years earlier, a girl named Nola Brown saved his daughter from severe injury, and now her corpse arrives at Dover after a suspicious plane crash in Alaska that also killed other government operatives. Feeling grateful to Nola, Zig intercepts her body to prepare it himself. He quickly realizes the dead woman is not Nola and wonders about her true identity. This discovery sets Zig on a harrowing path of danger, subterfuge, and government secrets as he searches for Nola and tries to discover the secret that has made her a danger to the government she serves as the U.S. Army's artist-in-residence. VERDICT Weaving the past with the present and creating a conspiracy with connections to magician Harry Houdini, Meltzer's series launch is a gripping thriller that will not disappoint his many fans. A true page-turner. [See Prepub Alert, 9/25/17]-Sandra Knowles, South Carolina State Lib., Columbia © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
